Alas, my heart, thy love since childhood's days
Hath wept; thy dream was understood by none.
Seek not in vain a friend to know thy ways--
The soul is born eternally alone.

Thou from thy hopeless heart that love shalt cast--
That child of earth, false, illegitimate:
Shalt fling it to the night and wintry blast--
Out in the storm--there let it find its fate.

There motherless and orphaned let it weep,
And let the wind its sobbings onward bear
Unto some desert place, or stormy deep--
But not where human soul its voice may hear.

The wind is howling in its agony
All through this snow-bound night, with piercing cry;
Alas, beneath the broken willow tree
My shattered love lies dying--let it die.